Painting Dory and Strawberries plus Flower Pics

Thanks for joining me today! I’m hoping to start catching up on some back-logged posts I’ve been wanting to share with you. Today’s comes from a visit to my aunt’s home in N. FL back in the Spring. She has some amazing plants, so I thought I’d share a few…

The Panda Plant aka Pussy Ears (Kalanchoe tomentosa) has these darling furry velvet ‘ears’ that you just want to pet!

She also has this nifty Rabbit’s Foot Fern (Davallia fejeensis) where the rhizomes (creeping rootstalks) look like fuzzy rabbit’s feet.

A pretty cactus bloom.

She was given this by family in Ohio and told it was a Jerusalem plant, tho I can’t find anything like it on the net. It’s nifty how the inside reminds me of a poppy ‘fruit’. Let me know if you know what it is!

I finish with her lovely irises… I couldn’t pick a favorite, so you get to see all three…

The strawberries and leaves on her welcome sign had faded away, so I went to Michaels and got some paints and refreshed them for her.

She wanted me to sign and date it and we all got a laugh when she caught that I put ‘o8 instead of ’18… yep, I’m running a few years behind! lol!

I was honored and a little bit nervous when she entrusted me with her next project…

She was tired of her plain white fish and wanted him to be colorful. Her BFF had a picture of her son’s royal blue tang and those were the colors she wanted used…

Ahh… Dory! Also known as regal tang and surgeonfish (Paracanthurus hepatus).

So, I used the picture as a starting point and then took a little artistic license for some extra pops of color and sprayed on a lacquer to seal her up for easy cleaning and give her some shine….

My aunt seemed pleased with how it turned out and if she ever gets bored with those colors, we now know it’s not too hard to change it up.

Thanks for stopping by here today. I look forward to seeing you again as soon as I can find another little break to catch up again. Have a lovely day!

~D.Ann

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Flower pics and Sandhill Cranes

I’m finally back and I’m glad you’ve stopped back by, too!

I’m going to start this post with a visit to northern Florida last November. I didn’t get to post the videos of the Sandhill Cranes. They’re such nifty birds, although the locals might complain about them tearing up their yards as they look for food. It was fun to watch a couple sing and dance together. (It is said that the female makes two calls for every one the male makes… I’ll let you draw your own conclusions about that! Ha!)

(You can click on the white arrow in the middle of the pictures to go to the videos. Turn up the volume for this first one.)

I guess, after a while, they must get sore throats and just dance…

Zooming ahead 3 and a half months later, we see the results of their fooling around…

It’s so fun to see wildlife wandering the streets of quiet neighborhoods! If you stand still and don’t bother them, they might even get within a feet of you… but remember they are WILDlife!! I love that their red faces look like hearts when you look at them straight on…

Next are some of the many nifty plants at my aunt’s house. First up is the Turk’s Cap Cactus aka Melon Cactus. It gets loads of those nifty pink fruits (right now there’s only one on the left side).

Atop the brown woolly ‘cap’ the flowers burst forth swathed in white wool…

The Kaffir Lily (Clivia miniata) is a member of the Amaryllis family…

And with a great sense of humor, her ‘Shrek’s Ears’ (Crassula ovata ‘Gollum’) – a type of jade plant – are planted next to ‘Donkey’s Tail’ (aka burro’s tail – Sedum morganianum)! lol!

Jatropha (aka nettlespurge or physic nut) blooms…

It’s amazing how a heavy dew changes everything… even some ‘weeds’ in the yard…

My favorite is this dew drop laden Periwinkle…

For those of you who are getting another round of cold weather, hopefully this will tide you over until your spring flowers start blooming like crazy real soon.

Thanks for stopping by today to enjoy these lovely creations with me!

~D.Ann

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Naples Botanical Garden Flowers

Today I’m happy to be sending you all some lovely flowers to brighten your day! On our way back from Sanibel, we stopped at the Naples Botanical Garden. This lovely garden features plants from the tropics and subtropics between the latitudes of 26 degrees North and 26 degrees South that you can see highlighted on the map:

The 170 acres include Florida, Asian, Brazilian and Caribbean Gardens, as well as an orchid garden, water garden, children’s garden and butterfly house. The paths are exceptionally ADA friendly and they have the most comfortable scooters I’ve ever tried available for a small rental fee. Ok, it’s time to grab a cuppa, sit back and let your imagination take flight with these floral pieces of eye candy…

Let’s start with some of my favorite flowers – orchids!

If you’ve been here before you know I have a fondness for these flowers and how they often strike up the imagination’s pareidolia…

Pareidolia – the human ability to see shapes or make pictures out of randomness.

… like the big ‘noses’ of the Cattleya orchids:

– that sometimes look like puppies!

… or the amazing Oncidium orchids, also known as ‘dancing ladies’.:

What do YOU see in the following orchids?

 

For my cat loving friends… do you see what I saw in these next two?

Another of my favorite flowers is the water lily and there were tons of them.

I was especially delighted to see the amazing Victoria Regia (Victoria amazona) water lilies in the Brazilian Garden. It reminded me of the ones I saw in the South America.These are the largest waterlilies on earth and can only be found in the wild in the Amazon rain forest. The leaves can grow to some 8′ across and are so buoyant they can support the weight of a small child or an evenly distributed load of nearly 100 lbs!

The butterfly garden was aflutter with these winged ‘flowers’ and I was happy to see several monarch butterflies.

Have you ever seen a monarch chrysalis? The little pearls of gold amaze me… Looks like they got a hold of some of my crafting supplies and added some bling!

Speaking of crafting… we’re always looking for fun and lovely color combinations and there is plenty of inspiration in the Creator’s color palette:

This one had a sign: Aechmea “Blue Tango”:

I may have to bookmark this post to use for color inspiration on those days when the brain fog rolls in thick and heavy. lol

Ok, lets close with some interesting and unusual plants and flowers – like this fruit from the Toad Tree (Tabernaemontana elegans Apocynaceae) from Zimbabwe. If you do a Google Search on Toad Tree, you can see a picture of when the fruit bursts open and really looks like a wide mouthed toad!

I hope you enjoyed the pics! If you did, I highly recommend including this beautiful garden on your next trip to the southwest coast of Florida!

Hopefully I’ll be back to crafting again real soon. Thank you for stopping by today. Ya’ll take care and stay warm!

– D. Ann

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Spring Flowers at JC Raulston Arboretum, Raleigh, NC

Hello and welcome!

It’s time to switch gears and get back to nature today. I have just a few pictures of the oodles I took at the last of the gardens we got to visit in May – the JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh, NC.

The quality of these isn’t great as I made them low res so the page will load quickly, but I think you will still enjoy them. If you missed the other posts, you can go to the home page and, in the right-hand column – under ‘categories’, click ‘garden.’

You can click on any picture to enlarge it.

Enjoy your tour!

^ Salvia ‘Cardona’ (They have GREAT signage at this arboretum! I didn’t catch them all, but will let you know the ones I did.)

^ Gerbera (Garvinea ‘Sweet Dreams’)

^ Dichelostemma multiflorum (wild hyacinth)

^ Iris ‘Tea Service’

^ Dianthus –  hybrid Sweet William

^ Magnolia… The flower is as big as my head!

Hydrangeaceae   Deutzia xhybrida “Tourbillon Rouge’

Dicentra “Amore Pink’ (bleeding heart)

^ Dichelostemma venustum… a cross between the Dichelostemma multiflorum (wild hyacinth), above, and the Dichelostemma ida-maia (‘firecracker flower’) you saw in my pictures from Daniel Stowe Botanical Gardens (HERE).

^Lilium ‘Sunny Morning’

^ Kniphofia uvaria – Red Hot Poker/Torch Lily (a favorite of hummingbirds)

If you click on the next one to enlarge it, you might see who photo-bombed my picture in the upper left. : )

I meditate on all your activity;
I eagerly ponder over the work of your hands….

The works of Jehovah are great;
They are studied by all those finding pleasure in them.
His activity is glorious and splendid,
And his righteousness endures forever.

– Psalm 143:5 & 111:2,3

I hope you enjoyed your tour – feel free to stop by any time!

– D.Ann

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p.s. Any ads you may see are placed by WordPress and are not endorsed by me.